Maria, my wife, has taught me to reduce my use of the word “that.”  And it works!  That may be one of the most unnecessary words in English.  Write a paragraph, notice how many times you include that, then eliminate (nearly) all the occurrences, and you’ll see  you can live without that. I bet your paragraph sounds better, too. There are some valid uses for the word, most notably if you wish to be specific about an item:  “Can you hand me that glass, please?” as you point to the champagne glass among the beer glasses.  Even then, you may be able to use a more specific descriptor to avoid using that.  It’s a crappy word.